the Board of Consulting Engineers occur and it is not necessary to give further details of their project. The following description of the Canal is the latest issued by the Isthmian Canal Commission. There is hardly a possibility of its being changed, except perhaps in minor details, so that it may be accepted as descriptive of the waterway which will be finished and opened to the traffic of the world in the year 1915, if not earlier. The entire length of the Canal from deep water in the Atlantic to deep water in the Pacific is about 501⁄2 miles. Its length on land is about 4011⁄2 miles. In passing through it from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a vessel will enter a channel with a bottom width of 500 feet in Limon Bay, follow this for about seven miles to Gatun, where it will enter a series of three locks in flight and be lifted 85 feet to the level of Gatun Lake. It will steam at full ocean speed through this lake, in a channel varying from 1,000 to 500 feet in width, for a distance of about 24 miles, to Bas Obispo, where it will enter the Culebra Cut. It will pass through the Cut, a distance of about nine miles, in a channel with a bottom width of 300 feet, to Pedro Miguel. There it will enter a lock and be lowered 30 1-3 feet to a small lake, at an elevation of 54 2-3 feet above sea level, and will steam through this for about 12 miles to Miraflores. There it will enter two locks in series and be lowered to the sea level, passing out into the Pacific through a channel about 82 miles in length, with a bottom width of 500 feet. The depth of the approach channel on the Atlantic side, where the tidal oscillation does not exceed 112 feet, will be 41 feet at mean tide, and on the Pacific side, where the maximum oscillation is 23 feet, the depth will be 45 feet at mean tide. The Gatun Dam, which will form Gatun Lake by impounding the waters of the Chagres and other streams, will be nearly 112 miles long, measured on its crest, nearly 121⁄2 mile wide at its base, about 400 feet wide at the top, and its crest, as planned, will be at an elevation of 115 feet above mean sea level, or 30 feet above the normal level of the Lake. The interior of the Dam will be formed of a natural mixture of sand and clay, dredged by hydraulic process from pits above and below the Dam, and placed between two large masses of rock and miscellaneous material, obtained from steam shovel excavation at various points along the Canal. The top and upstream slope will be thoroughly riprapped. The Spillway is a concrete lined opening, 1,200 feet long and 300 feet wide, cut through a hill of rock nearly in the centre of the Dam, the bottom of the opening being 10 feet above sea level. During the construction of the Dam, all the water discharged from the Chagres and its tributaries will flow through this opening. When construction has sufficiently advanced to permit the Lake to be formed, the Spillway will be closed with a concrete dam, fitted with gates and machinery for regulating the water level of the Lake. The water level of Lake Gatun, extending through the Culebra Cut, will be maintained at the south end by an earth dam connecting the locks at Pedro Miguel with the high ground to the westward, about 1,700 feet long, with its crest at an elevation of 105 feet above mean tide. A small lake between the locks at Pedro Miguel and those at Miraflores will be formed by dams connecting the walls of Miraflores locks with the high ground on either side. The dam to the westward will be earth, about 2,700 |